LGBT+ youth are being forced into homelessness after sexual abuse from family members, a shocking report confirms, with many having casual sex to keep a roof over their head while homeless.
Almost a fifth (17 per cent) of LGBT+ young people surveyed by LGBT+ youth homelessness charity akt said they felt like they had to have casual sex to find somewhere to stay while they were homeless. A similar number (16 per cent) said they engaged in sex work as a direct result of being made homeless.
The charity asked 161 LGBTQ+ young people about their experiences of homelessness in the last five years in the UK. Almost a quarter (24 per cent) said they experienced being homeless for one to three months, while 21 per cent experienced up to six months of being homeless. Almost three per cent said they had been homeless for over three years.
The damning report found that many LGBT+ young people experienced sexual abuse before being made homeless. One in six (16 per cent) said they were forced by family members to do sexual acts before they became homeless. The same number said they experienced this with a romantic partner.
Sadly, the akt report found abuse was prevalent in other areas. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of LGBT+ young homeless people said they were repeatedly belittled by family members to the point they felt worthless, and a similar number (61 per cent) said they felt frightened or threatened by their family before they became homeless.
Half (50 per cent) said, before they were homeless, they feared expressing their LGBT+ identity to their family would result in them being evicted.
Tim Sigsworth, chief executive of akt, and Terry Stacy, chair, said in a joint statement that the tragic report provided evidence for rethinking how organisations and the UK government support young LGBT+ people at risk of homelessness.
The charity called for the government to introduce “mandatory monitoring of gender and sexuality as a first vital step across housing and homelessness services” which it said would lead to “faster and more responsive interventions”.
akt said there also needed to be a “stronger emphasis on prevention focused intervention” to limit the long-term impacts of homelessness including “poor mental health and perpetual journeys of abuse”.
Rick Henderson, CEO of Homeless Link, said the akt research shows the “abuse many LGBTQ+ young people experience in their family home”. He said the experience of homelessness is “isolating and can inhibit young people’s opportunities to build relationships and communities with their peers”.
“This report shines a light on the experiences of abuse, discrimination and suffering faced by young people who are marginalised due to their sexuality or gender identity,” Henderson said.
“While there is extensive research about how early experiences of adversity impact on health and social welfare, this research provides an explicit picture of how these experiences lead to and sustain young LGBTQ+ people’s homelessness and risk of further abuse and exploitation.”
A South African man is on trial for the brutal murder of a gay man who was butchered and burned in a suspected hate crime.
The mutilated remains of 40-year-old Andile “Lulu” Ntuthela were found in a shallow grave 11 days after his murder. He is believed to have been killed simply because he was gay.
The 28-year-old suspect, who has not yet been named, appeared at the Kwa-Nobuhle Magistrates Court in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday (13 April).
Police spokesperson Col Priscilla Naidu said he was arrested after the man’s family complained to the police that he had burnt bedding at his house.
“On 1 April, the family reported the malicious property damage to police and indicated that they were suspicious that he may have been involved in some other criminal activity,” she said. “Police went to the house and found bloodstains inside his room as well as outside.”
The suspect was hospitalised for a mental health condition between 1 and 9 April. On his discharge from hospital he was arrested and detained for malicious damage to property.
Information about Ntuthela’s murder emerged under questioning, and officers found his remains only a few paces from the alleged killer’s front door.
“The murder is suspected to be LGBTQI linked,” Naidu confirmed.
The gruesome killing in South Africa comes days after another gay manwas stabbed to death and dumped in a ditch near a school.
As Ntuthela’s murder forced South Africans to confront the reality of this mounting death toll, members of KwaNobuhle’s LGBT+ community were left reeling.
“We know we are not safe. We only hang out with people that we know and trust because we know the prejudice we face,” said Sixolile Ndlondlo, Ntuthela close friend, speaking to The Herald.
“Andile knew his [alleged] killer. They were friends. For him to be killed like this … has us questioning who we can trust.”
Sibonelo Ncanana-Trower, spokesperson for Nelson Mandela Bay LGBTI Sector, urged queer South Africans to speak out against the increase in homophobic hate.
“[We are] deeply worried about Lulu’s murder and would like that the heavy might of law be felt by the killer,” Ncanana-Trower said to IOL.
“We call on the community to not be silent on such cases and to speak out. The Sector notes the increase in crimes of hate in the country and calls on government to intervene and work with the sector in engaging the community.
“Hate crimes don’t only affect the victim and family, it affects the whole community in a negative way.”
A candlelit prayer to celebrate Ntuthela’s life will be held on Thursday (15 April), the Sector said.
A chilling new bill in Texas would define the parents of trans kids who consenting to their affirming healthcare as “child abusers”.
Texas Senate Bill 1646 was filed on 11 March, 2021, and is sponsored by 13 Republican state senators.
The bill states that a person will be considered guilty of child abuse by “consenting to or assisting in the administering or supplying of, a puberty suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment” or “performing or consenting to the performance of surgery or another medical procedure on a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment”.
The bill places Texas parents consenting to gender-affirming care for their trans kids alongside those who create child porn, sexually abuse children, give illegal drugs to children and those who facilitate forced child marriages.
Penalties for child abuse in Texas include jail time, fines, and removal of the child.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) staff attorney Chase Strangio wrote on Twitter: “This bill in Texas, SB1646, would remove trans kids from their homes if a parent affirms their gender. Truly barbaric.”
In response, the Texas charity Doctors For Change wrote an open letter to state senator Bryan Hughes, who chairs the Senate State Affairs Committee, condemning the bill and its implications for both parents and healthcare providers.
It wrote that its “more than 1,000 healthcare provider members… vehemently oppose SB1646”.
The letter continued: “We care for Texans of all ages, including transgender and non-binary children, youth, and adults, and we are appalled by the blatant intention of SB1646 to characterise the provision of our compassionate, evidence-based care as ‘child abuse’ and to levy criminal penalties against providers who are putting the health and wellbeing of patients first, as is our duty to do, as well as parents/ guardians who are properly ensuring their children receive necessary care.”
The group also pointed out that because of mandatory reporting of child abuse, the bill would “mandate any healthcare provider report minors receiving certain care which would irreparably damage the trust and confidentiality of patient-provider relationships”.
A referendum on the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples in Switzerland is likely to take place later this year.
Lawmakers in the European country last December approved the “Marriage for All” bill.
Mannschaft, a Swiss LGBTQ magazine, on Wednesday reported opponents of the law have collected more than the 50,000 signatures required to prompt a referendum on the measure.
Marriage equality opponents had until Saturday to collect the necessary signatures for a referendum. Mannschaft reports the vote is expected to take place in September or November once the Swiss Federal Chancellery certifies the signatures.
Maria von Känel, vice president of the Swiss Rainbow Families Association, told the Washington Blade after lawmakers gave their final approval to the “Marriage for All” bill that she expected a referendum on it, even though polls indicate a majority of Swiss voters support marriage rights for same-sex couples. Jean-Paul Gschwind, a member of the Swiss National Council who opposes nuptials for gays and lesbians, told Swiss media it is “important that the people have the opportunity to express their opinion on such a social decision.”
Swiss voters in February 2020 overwhelmingly approved a bill that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Neighboring France, Germany and Austria are among the European countries that have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The White House is not ruling out any legal action being taken in the future against states in which lawmakers are pushing anti-trans laws, including banning transgender athletes from female sports teams.
Press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday (8 April) that president Joe Bidenwould continue to advocate for LGBT+ rights amid the flurry of new state laws against trans youth. But she stopped short of committing to any legal action against them.
Chris Johnson, the White House correspondent for the Washington Blade, asked Psaki if Biden would “reach out to the attorney general” to begin legal action against states which enacted anti-trans bills. He pointed out that state legislatures had been ‘warned’ that “anti-transgender bills are an illegal form of sex discrimination”.
Johnson specifically cited the actions of the Arkansas legislature, which overrode its governor’s veto to pass an anti-trans healthcare bill. The cruel ban, which passed into law on Tuesday (6 April), makes it illegal for healthcare professionals in Arkansas to offer gender-affirming care like puberty blockers and hormone treatment to trans youth.
Arkansas has also become the second state to ban transgender athletes from female sports teams. Mississippi’s governor has also signed a law banning transgender athletes from girls’ school sports.
Psaki said she can’t “stand here and predict legal action” as the ultimate decision on if action would go forward lies with the Justice Department and attorney general, Merrick Garland. However, she said Joe Biden remains committed to advocating for LGBT+ rights and transgender equality in the US.
“What I can say is that the president’s view is that all persons should receive equal treatment under law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation,” Psaki said.
“That’s fundamental to how he will make laws — advocate for laws, I should say; how he will communicate about his views on the rights of transgender individuals in the country; and certainly, you know, what his view is as it relates to any actions by the government.”
In a follow-up question, Johnson asked if Biden would engage in communication with Garland about the anti-trans legislation. Psaki said the president “certainly can”, but she reiterated: “I don’t have anything to predict for you at this time.”
Garland has said he will advocate for stronger protections for trans Americans. In a hearing before the Senate about his nomination to the office of the attorney general, he promised to combat violence against the trans committee, especially Black, trans women, in the US.
He said it was the “job of the Justice Department to stop” the murders of transgender Americans and protect trans youth. Garland said: “It’s clear to me that this kind of hateful activity has to stop, and yes, we need to put resources into it.”
But in the same hearing, Garland dodged questions about bans on transgender athletes being included in girls’ and women’s sports. He declined to comment on questions, saying he hasn’t had the “chance to consider these kinds of issues” in his career.
The NCAA Board of Governors released a statement Monday that it will not host championships in places that discriminate against transgender athletes.
“The NCAA Board of Governors firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports. This commitment is grounded in our values of inclusion and fair competition,” the statement read in part.
A spokesperson said the NCAA has not made decisions about specific championships at this point in time but is monitoring the situation.
Heather Hughes, a music and math teacher at a private school in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, said a 16-year-old student pulled out her phone Monday afternoon and announced that Gov. Asa Hutchinson had vetoed a bill that would have banned transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming medical care.
Hughes said it shows that young people understand the national conversation about trans youth, who are the focus of a wave of state bills that seek to restrict their access to transition-related medical care and sports.
“They get that something’s up, and they understand enough to be like, ‘This is a bad idea,’” Hughes said of her students. “They think it’s asinine. They don’t understand why it’s a big deal in the first place, like why bother making these bills, and so then anytime it’s brought up, they’re mostly infuriated.”
Another student, who is 15, talked to Hughes last week about how they wanted to start testosterone soon. But on Tuesday, the Arkansas Legislature overrode Hutchinson’s veto, and the state is now poised to become the first to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors.
The law bans insurance plans from covering or reimbursing the cost of transition-related care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormones. After it takes effect this summer, Hughes’ student won’t be able to use testosterone unless they pay out of pocket, which Hughes said is “not that likely given their situation.”
Hughes, who is also trans, called the Arkansas law “ridiculous” and said it “opens up the door to more restrictions.” She said her doctor informed her that part of the law will also explicitly allow private insurance companies in the state to refuse to cover gender-affirming care for trans people of any age.
“We’re already getting priced out of so many things and already face enough — why make it worse?”
Hughes is one of 17,300 educators in the U.S. and Canada who signed an open letter to President Joe Biden Monday calling on him to do more to directly address the wave of state bills targeting transgender young people. There are currently 20 states that have introduced bills that would prohibit or restrict transition care for trans minors, according to the ACLU, and more than 30 that have introduced measures that would ban trans student athletes from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. According to the Movement Advancement Project, five states — Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Dakota — have passed such legislation, though a federal judge stopped Idaho’s law from taking effect last August.
Harper Keenan, an assistant professor in the department of curriculum and pedagogy at the University of British Columbia, helped organize the letter.
Keenan taught elementary students in New York City public schools for five years, and said the bills create a dangerous power dynamic. Legislation that bans transgender student athletes from competing on the sports teams that align with their gender identity, for example, positions transgender girls “as predators invading girls’ spaces,” he said.
“This is a violation of some of our most fundamental responsibilities as educators, which is to support and protect the young people that we work with,” Keenan said. “When we position young people as predators, especially a particular group of young people as predators, we really put them in danger.”
The letter from educators calls on the Biden administration to protect transgender young people’s access to health care, school facilities and activities, and school records and identification that reflects their self-identified gender.
“Anti-trans bills are merely the tip of a much larger iceberg of anti-trans sentiment, gender misunderstandings, and the scapegoating of trans youth that serves to mobilize a conservative base,” the letter states.
The Biden administration did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment on the letter, but an official did confirm that Biden issued an executive order this month stating that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which protects students at schools receiving public funds from sex-based discrimination, also protects them from discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The Department of Justice supported Biden’s order in a memo released Monday, which said it interprets Title IX to protect LGBTQ students.
The official also said the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced on Tuesday that it will conduct a comprehensive review of Title IX regulations to fulfill Biden’s recent executive order.
Lawmakers who support restrictions on trans student athletes have said these measures are necessary to protect cisgender girls’ opportunities in sports. However, legislators in almost all the states considering bans could not cite any known cases where trans girls’ participation in sports caused a problem in their state or region, according to an Associated Press report published last month.
Still, Hutchinson said the state’s ban on trans athletes in sports, which he signed March 25, “will help promote and maintain fairness in women’s sporting events.”
Supporters of the gender-affirming care restrictions argue that they’re protecting minors who are too young to make medical decisions. The sponsor of Arkansas’ recently passed trans health bill, state Rep. Robin Lundstrum, a Republican, compared it to laws that prevent minors from purchasing alcohol until they’re 21.
“They need to get to be 18 before they make those decisions,” Lundstum said, according to The Associated Press.
Some teachers believe the debate over trans minors’ access to care is really a debate over their existence. Elizabeth-Marie Helms, a trans middle school social studies teacher in Fort Wayne, Indiana, said legislators “don’t really have any interest in science-based medicine.” She noted that lawmakers in Indiana, like those in Arkansas, want to ban trans minors’ access to puberty blockers, even though they have long been used to treat precocious puberty in cisgender youth and wouldn’t be banned for cisgender young people.
“I try to teach my students, ‘Listen to others with empathy. Even if you don’t agree with them, try to understand their points of view,’” Helms said. “In these cases at the state level, it’s just really unclear what a sincere approach to these Republican talking points would even look like, because it just nakedly looks like they’re trying to erase trans people.”
Some cisgender educators like Melissa Tracy, who teaches at a high school in Delaware, said they’re worried about the effects of the bills on trans students at school.
“It’s personal for me, because I think of every trans student who has ever sat in my classroom, and, frankly, they deserve better,” she said. “They are not political pawns.”
Tracy said she participated in a workshop 10 years ago that changed her understanding of the needs of LGBTQ youth. The presenter said that 30 to 40 percent of LGBTQ students will experience suicidal ideation. (That number is higher for trans youth: Fifty-two percent reported that they seriously considered suicide from December 2019 to March 2020, according to the Trevor Project’s 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health.)
“Since then, I’ve tried to really do right by the students that I teach,” Tracy said.
Several states, including Alabama and Iowa, are considering bills that would force state employees, including teachers, to out students to their parents if they believe a student is questioning their gender. Being forced to “out” a student takes away their agency and jeopardizes one of the few places that some trans youth feel safer, according to Tracy.
“Why wouldn’t we want to do whatever we can to create safe spaces for our students, because, frankly, some of the students that I have taught have not been accepted at home, and literally the only place where they might feel accepted is at school,” she said. “And then you remove that space of acceptance, and they can’t be who they want to be, and that’s just not right.”
Some teachers and advocates say they’re already seeing the national conversation affect trans students.
Julia Cuneo, a youth organizer and educator who helps high school students in Detroit with advocacy campaigns, said a few students have reached out to “express fear and concern” after Republican lawmakers in Michigan introduced a trans athlete ban.
“We have some students who are trans and genderqueer and who are really worried about the ways that their school will target them, and the ways that they won’t be able to express themselves in their classes,” Cuneo, who uses gender neutral pronouns, said. Some students fear their identity could be both disrespected and used against them or that they could be outed.
“They don’t know exactly how this will manifest,” Cuneo said. “The legislators write the law but then it’s kind of up to schools how it gets enforced, and so that uncertainty is really really scary.”
Cuneo said the bills put students and teachers against each other. They said they don’t know of any teachers who openly support Michigan’s athlete ban, but “I’ve definitely talked to teachers who feel like, ‘Well, the law is the law, and I have to do it or I’ll get in trouble.’”
Currently, both teachers and students want to create a safe environment for learning, but if the bills become law, their interests would clash, according to Cuneo.
“I think that’s really the end goal of the GOP in this moment, is to try and put that wedge between supporters and allies, people who are in solidarity with queer people, and the young people who are coming out,” they said.
Tracy said she wonders whether the sponsors of the bills know any trans youth or have spoken with any.
“I guarantee you that if they took even just 10 minutes out of their busy schedule to talk to somebody that perhaps their viewpoint might change,” she said. “Ultimately, I think this is just what I want to tell those legislators: It’s not about you. It’s not about you. It’s about the kids of America. It’s about the kids in your state.”
A devastated same-sex couple say they were turned away from a popular wedding venue “under the guise of Christianity”.
McCae Henderson and Ike Edwards got engaged on Valentine’s Day and began searching for wedding venues in North Carolina. They settled on Highgrove Estate, a romantic estate overlooking Lake Laurel in Fuquay-Varina.
The first red flag came when the couple filled out an intake form on the estate’s website, which only provided spaces for the name of the “bride” and “groom.”
“In the notes section I just said we were a groom and groom,” Edwards told ABC11. “It’s not like we can ignore that and then show up.”
Two days later, their application was refused. A Highgrove Estate employee told them the venue’s owners “have chosen not to participate in same-sex weddings at this time”.
The couple were dismayed by the decision. “Disheartening is the word I would use,” Henderson said. “We had not had anything like this throughout the process or really in our lives.
“This is us. We are gay and we did not choose to be gay,” he continued. “The fact that we don’t have access to things other people do is discrimination in my eyes.
“I think everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe to an extent. I don’t think you get to be racist because your religion tells you to be racist. I don’t think you get to be homophobic because your religion tells you to be homophobic.”
In a statement to ABC11, the venue insisted that it does not discriminate against any people or group as it welcomes LGBT+ employees and vendors.
However, the owners added: “We believe in the sanctity of marriage as God says in the Bible that marriage is between a man and a woman and we choose to honour Him above what the world decides what marriage should be.”
This explanation didn’t fly with Henderson and Edwards. The couple say they have many friends who grew up Christian, and Highgrove Estate’s sentiment isn’t shared by them.
President Biden, unveiling on Friday his initial budget request to Congress in the first year of his administration, called for ramping up funds to beat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, signaling he’d continue the PrEP-centric initiative that began in the previous administration.
In the preliminary budget request for fiscal year 2022, known in Washington parlance as the “skinny budget” in anticipation of broader request at a later time, Biden seeks an increase of $267 million for Ending the HIV Epidemic, building on the more than $400 million Congress has appropriated for the program since 2019.
As it was launched in the Trump administration, the initiative sought a 90 percent decrease in new incidents of HIV infections across the United States by 2030, although Biden campaigned on beating that goal by five years and ending the domestic HIV epidemic by 2025.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, hailed in a statement the proposed increased funds for the initiative, but said it falls short of the amount advocates in the fight against HIV/AIDS were seeking.
“While it falls short of what the community has requested, if this funding is realized it will continue the momentum already created and make further progress in ending HIV in the U.S. Efforts to end HIV will help eradicate an infectious disease that we have been battling for the last 40 years and help correct racial and health inequities in our nation,” Schmid said.
Counterintuitively, Trump had sought more funds to beat HIV/AIDS in his final year in office than Biden has in his first year in office. Last year, President Trump’s budget called for an increase of $412 million for the second year of the initiative for a total of $716 million while Congress settled on an increase of approximately $137 million.
Biden seeks increased funds for HIV/AIDS at a time when advocates in the fight against HIV were at a crossroads at the start of a new administration. Questions had persisted about whether or not the Biden administration would continue the initiative, which was the brainchild of health officials in the Trump administration.
An exorcist has claimed he has “prayed the gay away” from more than 500 LGBT+ people in Pakistan.
Tineenullah Fahad, who works from a clinic above a discount store in the country’s capital, Islamabad, explained to Vice World News that queer people are possessed by lustful demons.
The cure, he claims, is reciting verses from the Quran.
Since 2012, the 35-year-old has been offering so-called spiritual healing on a case-by-case basis. Such treatments include beating LGBT+ people in an effort to expel so-called evil spirits.
Around “60 per cent of the homosexual cases that come to me are the results of black magic and demonic possession,” Fahad claimed, explaining his belief that LGBT+ people are possessed by demons.
In one disturbing case, Fahad “was on top of [a victim] beating him and he had no scars on his body” for “four hours, until two o’clock at night”, he recalled.
Conversion therapists are often considered in Pakistan to be spiritual healers, with no federal laws banning the practice – meaning that such brutal beatings under the guise of spirituality continue.
Types of conversion therapy, UN violence expert Victor Madrigal-Borloz said, range from “beatings, rape, electrocution, forced medication, isolation and confinement, forced nudity, verbal offence [to] humiliation”.
All these atrocities, he said, are “degrading and discriminatory and rooted in the belief that LGBT persons are somehow inferior, and that they must at any cost modify their orientation or identity to remedy that supposed inferiority”.
But to Fahad, homosexuality is nothing more than a symptom of “Ashiq Jinnat” which loosely translates to a kind of demon-lover. To him, this justifies such extreme acts.SPONSORED CONTENT
He believes that a spirit, or a “jinn”, settles into a body to exploit the possessed’s lust – the jinn places people under a spell, which some spiritual healers claim bewitches them into same-sex attraction.
“When Satan was banished from Allah’s darbaar [a ruler’s court] he vowed to take revenge on mankind by making them reject God’s commands so that they fall into such unnatural activities,” he added.
Other anti-LGBT+ penal code provisions compound the climate of religious conservatism that snarls the lives of queer Pakistanis, forcing many to live in secrecy and always be on their guard.
With such looming threats – and an uptick of violence bringing even greater urgency – lawmakers last year announced a long-sought “bill of protection“. As transphobic violence in particular soars, ministers are scrambling to enshrine greater protections for the embattled trans community.